1. Field
The present invention relates to a liquid crystal display, and more particularly, to a liquid crystal display that has improved transmittance and visibility.
2. Discussion of the Background
Liquid crystal displays (LCD), may be composed of two display panels with field generating electrodes, such as a pixel electrode and a common electrode, and a liquid crystal layer between the display panels. LCDs display images by generating an electric field in the liquid crystal layer if voltage is applied to the field generating electrodes such that the liquid crystal molecules in the liquid crystal layer are aligned to control polarization of incident light.
The conventional liquid crystal displays may include switching elements connected to the pixel electrodes and multiple signal lines, such as gate lines and data lines, to apply voltage to the pixel electrodes by controlling the switching elements.
Further, in the conventional liquid crystal displays, a vertically aligned mode of liquid crystal display, in which the long axes of the liquid crystal molecules are arranged perpendicular to the display panel, without an electric field has been under the spotlight because of the large contrast ratio and the wide reference viewing angle. The reference viewing angle may imply a viewing angle under a contrast ratio of 1:10 or a luminance reverse limit angle between grays.
A method of dividing one pixel into two subpixels and applying different voltages to the subpixels to provide a difference in transmittance has been proposed in order to make the side visibility similar to the front visibility of the type of liquid crystal display. In this configuration, if different voltages are applied to the two subpixels through different data lines, double data driving circuits may be used. However, such a configuration may face cost increases in manufacturing.
A method of connecting the same data line to the two subpixels and reducing the voltage of one of the two subpixels by using a specific switching element and a capacitor has been proposed to solve the problem. However, the method has a problem of low transmittance to the same aperture ratio.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the invention and therefore it may contain information that may not constitute prior art that may be already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.